A digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism from and about rural America, by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based at the University of Kentucky.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2015

USDA rule will require ground beef producers to keep records of where meat came from

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday finalized a rule requiring producers of raw ground beef to keep records of where the meat came from, Lydia Wheeler reports for The Hill. The rule was designed to help the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) "improve its ability to determine the source of foodborne illnesses linked to ground beef and to stop the outbreak from spreading." FSIS said investigations have been hurt by retail stores mixing product from various sources and failing "to keep clear records that would allow investigators to determine which supplier produced the unsafe product."

"Under the rule, all establishments and retail stores that grind raw beef products will be required to keep record of the establishment numbers of establishments supplying material used to prepare each lot of raw ground beef product; all supplier lot numbers and production dates; the names of the supplied materials, including beef components and any materials carried over from one production lot to the next; the date and time each lot of raw ground beef product is produced; and the date and time when grinding equipment and other related food-contact surfaces are cleaned and sanitized," Wheeler writes.

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About The Rural Blog

This blog generally follows traditional journalistic standards. It's not about opinions, though you may read one here occasionally. It's about facts that we think will be useful to rural journalists, non-rural journalists who do rural stories, and others interested in rural issues. We don't try to be provocative, so we don't generate as many comments as most blogs with the level of traffic we have, but we certainly invite comments -- and contributions, to al.cross@uky.edu. Feel free to republish blog items, with credit to us and the original source.